Habitat builds 12 homes

Led by Thomas Gipson, president of Thomas Gipson Homes in Raleigh, the team built the homes in Biltmore Trace, a 28-home, single-family subdivision that Habitat is developing in the Biltmore Hills neighborhood in Southeast Raleigh.

More than 200 suppliers donated roughly 90 percent of the materials and labor for the $900,000 project.

The five-day blitz, which was supported by banks, real-estate firms and individual donors, involved final construction of the houses themselves. Site work – including foundations, driveways, sidewalks and utilities – previously had been completed.

Habitat, which aims to build 50 houses in the fiscal year that ends June 30, already has built 23 – surpassing the one-year record of 21 it built in the mid-1990s. The group, which built its first house in 1986, expects to build its 200th before March 1, 2003.